MA Symposium 2013

Hello All,

it's that time of year again, when our postgraduate students present their dissertation projects at our annual MA Symposium.  As usual, our MA Art Gallery & Museum Studies students are presenting their projects alongside our other MA students (MA Art History, MA Cultural Studies, MA Fine Art)....interdisciplinarity at work!
Here's the programme...if you're interested you can pop along of course!
Mark

University of Leeds

School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies

MA Symposium

Schedule

22-23 May 2013

Old Mining Building

Room G.19

Wednesday 22 May

10:00-10:15         Welcome

          Dr Eric Prenowitz

10:15-12:15         Experiences of Art

Chair: Dr Barbara Engh

-         Freya Jewitt: ‘The Voice is the Sun Touching Your Face’

-         Jasia Little: ‘Poetics of Space’: The Construction of Intimacy in Bourgeois, Salcedo and Halilaj

-         Marcus Rogers: How can a non-contemporary painting be a relational agent?

-         Leila Nassereldein: The Time of the Collector: Rereading Walter Benjamin

-         Alexandra Bowron: ‘Kool-Aid-Man in Second Life’: New Media Art and Johanna Drucker’s Concept of ‘Complicity’

12:15-1:00     LUNCH  (Rm. 1.04)

1:00-2:35    (R)uses of Technology

Chair: Dr Catherine Ferguson

-         Endang Suryana Priyatna: The Speakers of the Mosques: Voices and Noises in the Urban Soundscape of Indonesia

-         Jessica Gough: ‘We Live in Public’

-         Fiona Green: The Voice of Domestic Service: The Development and Representation of ‘Below Stairs’ in West Yorkshire Historic Houses

-         Anne Cresswell: Lee Bontecou: Ecology and the Speculative Imaginary

2:35-2:50       TEA BREAK (Rm. G.19)

2:50-4:50              The Dead, the Archive

Chair: Prof David Hill

-         Rosemary Eade: ‘An Issue of Life and Death’: A Discussion of Taxidermy

-         Emily Bryan-Kinns: Touching Objects: Exploring Public Responses to the Egyptian Artefact Handling Collection at the Manchester Museum

-         Rebecca Jenkins: ‘I Tweet Dead People’: An Analysis of a Modern Approach to Engaging Audiences in Classical Collections

-         Stephanie Tredan: The Repatriation of Australian Indigenous Human Remains from the Manchester Museum

-         Sally Colledge: Ephemeral Art: How and Why Do We Keep it Alive for Future Audiences?

Thursday 23 May

10:00-12:00         Ways of Seeing Things

Chair: Dr Abigail Harrison Moore

-         Acatia Finbow: The Artist is Present: The Spectacle of Marina Abramovic at MoMA

-         Stefanie Woodford: Collector or Hoarder? Notions of Collecting and Value at Mr Straw’s House

-         Nicola Joy Reynolds: Museums and Visually Impaired Visitors: The Rethinking of Heritage and Disability

-         Tina LeBlanc: Museums as Training Ground

12:00-1:00     LUNCH (Rm. 1.04)

1:00-2:35              Conflicting Modernities

Chair: Prof David Jackson

-         Kit Long Lam: Contemporary Chinese Art and its Socio-Intellectual Background in the 1990s

-         Holly Victoria Gilpin: Legacy and Culture in Post-Industrial Leeds

-         Yu-Ting Huang: David’s ‘Brutus’ and ‘Les Sabines’: Classical Roles Portraying the French Revolution

-         Tristan Marshall: The Art of the Sale

2:35-2:50       TEA BREAK (Rm. G.19)

2:50-4:50    Identity/Politics

Chair: Dr Eric Prenowitz

-         Yeon Jae Huh: Representation, Gender, Modernity: French Art in the 19^th and Early 20^th Centuries

-         Rachel Kelsey: Rewriting the Colonial Story: The Search for Identity and Selfhood in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Early Films

-         Ruei-Jen Wu: Contemporary Art Museum vs. National Identity Crisis

            Louisa Briggs: Strategies of Resistance: The Neo Avant-Garde in Eastern Europe in   the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s

Museum and Heritage Show 2013

Last week, my friend Faith and I attended the annual Museums and Heritage Show at Olympia in London. Held over two days, the conference offered talks and presentations covering all aspects of the running and development of museums and galleries. Learning, engaging audiences, visitor insight, collections management, new technology, retail and trading and exhibition design all featured as areas of discourse, involving a huge variety of industry professionals. Amongst the interactive presentations were stands in which relevent creative service companies were exhibiting; as well as workshop stations such as Intranet Future's social media lab and Culture Label's increased income appointments. Aside from developing some really valuable contacts, we also learnt about many established companies - who all contributed to the museums and heritage industry in a variety of ways.

Throughout the entire conference, technology was (unsurprisingly) a firm theme in all areas of industry discussion. Most interesting to Faith and I were the visually rich new methods of display and exhibition; in particular Holovista's beautiful 3D television artefact display alongwith Colour Holographic's unbelieveablly realistic representations of precious objects and materials - offering a new NON-digital option for the display of fragile objects by hollographic reproduction. Yet amongst such eye-catching products and stands, other impressive industry gems were present. The services provided by companies like Bright White (a 2D and 3D integrated design consultancy based in York) and Paragon Creative (an exhibition design company also based in York) were fascinating, carrying out culturally considered projects with aesthetic and interactive intent. Additional to these stands, there was a programme of free talks, led by industry professionals. My two favourites were: 'Evaluating a new dimension - Audience Research for the Tanks at Tate Modern', delivered by Sabine Kolher (Audience insight and Research Manager at Tate), discussing how the the Tanks as a space for live art impacted/changed Tate's methods of Audience Research; and 'Experience Design: Creating compelling multimedia visitor experiences', delivered by Jessica Taylor (Global Head of Digital Media, Antenna) and Giles Pooley (Experience Designer, Antenna) where we were given an insight into the processes and aims of 'Experience Design'.

Although the show was quite small, it was a great to be part of such a talented community of creative professionals - all of whom we'd really love to work with & learn from in the future. Conversation was consistently engaging, and as a result we've both got pages of notes. It was such a great way to put all the university learning we have done this year into a wider context! The M+H Show is an annual event and completley free (if you sign up). This time next year, it would be great for a big parade of us HAMS students to take advantage of all the information and contacts the show has to offer.



'David Bowie is' | Questioning sound tech's intervention

Last Friday I went to the V&A's blockbuster exhibition 'David Bowie is'. This post notes how I found the viewing experience different/interrupted, as a result of the designed sound experience. Perhaps reflective of David Bowie's musical output, sound played a large role in the exhibition. To create this hybrid experience the V&A collaborated with sound specialists at Sennheiser, whose mission was to help the Museum 'bring together Sound and Vision' (Sennheiser, 2013).  However, where sound experience can often strengthen the relationship between visitor and exhibit (in its provision of additional content), I found that in this case it distanced my relationship with the exhibits. Whilst the content of Sennheisers sound guide was both relevant and interesting, its all-encompassing and controlled nature made it difficult to fully engage with either the sound guide OR the collection. Different to others, this audio guide is not a 'guide' at all. Instead audio info is triggered based on where the user is currently stood, removing the opportunity for viewers to navigate their own experience. Hopping around to find the right trigger spot, I began to resent the audio content for dictating my viewing experience. Overall, it seemed that the exhibition content was being relayed by too many voices (both active and contributing at the same time). Had the audio content been activated by the visitor's selection rather than triggered by their location, this may have minimised confusion between the multiple information sources, and minimised the audio guides control over the visiting experience.

This post is critical in its discussion to recognise how tech can hinder a viewing experience as much as  it can heighten it. Perhaps curating the work of a Musician/Artist whose career is multi-faceted (fashion, music, artwork, video, design etc) requires a similarly multi-faceted viewing experience. However, when introducing these new dimensions the audiences' liberty to engage with art independently should never be forgotten. 

Click here for the Sennheiser press release.

'A Walk Through British Art' - Tate Britain's new Interpretation model

Instigated by Tate Britain's director Penelope Curtis, the permanent collection has been re-staged. The new display model ‘A Walk Through British Art’ went public on the 14th May 2013, reversing most of the decisions made when Tate Britain first opened. Factors of Curtis’ rethink include: the removal of accompanying interpretation, chronological display in place of thematic, and lastly the inclusion of more artworks.  However, with the introduction of this new model comes the question – why?

Museum Interpretation largely contributes to how exhibits are percieved and experienced by the visiting audience; therefore a big question for these institutes has always been: how much interpretation should we provide, and in what form? Each of the changes implemented by Curtis alter the way in which this narrative is delivered. Instead of attaining context through the artworks’ accompanying text panels, this now takes place in the form of ‘Introduction rooms’ (Sabine Kohler, Tate, 2013); separating the text display from the artwork display. Also providing context is the new chronological order of the permanent collection. Different to Tate Britain’s old thematic model, the chronological display links art to its history more directly; allowing artworks to describe British history, and British history to help describe the artworks. Additional to the chronological timeline running along the walls, the central floor space is filled with the BP spotlight collection 'offering more depth on particular artworks, artists or themes' (M+H Magazine, 2013) which will be the only part of the display that regularly changes. 

Assuming that Tate Britain removed text panels in favor of an ‘un-disturbed’ experience, my first reaction to the Guardians headline: ‘Tate Britain scraps explanatory panels next to works of art’ was - oh no, the audience will be alienated! However, instead it seems that this model is about re-deciding when museum interpretation should be introduced, minimising unnecessary intervention. Removing the option for visitors to read their way around the Tate Britain, this new model ensures that the primary activity carried out in the galleries is to engage with art by ‘looking’.

Click here to watch '500 years of British Art - Director's highlights: Penelope Curtis'.

For anyone in Cambridge next month...